


The walled garden

by Bitterblue



Series: Experimental Theology [4]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1784062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue/pseuds/Bitterblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delphine in the aftermath of Serpent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The walled garden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LeftPawedPolarBear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeftPawedPolarBear/gifts).



The motion of the boat sent white capped waves skittering away from the hull, sloshing into the distance with a rhythm Delphine was unsure if she found irritating or soothing. Everything felt like that, caught and tightly coiled. She could still taste Cosima on her tongue.

She would be awake by now, surely, and aware of the deception.

Laurent pressed his head into her calf, curled as she was in the very stern of the small ferry making the night crossing of the Channel and with no room for her overgrown dog-daemon to share except at her feet. She sighed, watching the stars until she was sure she could see them move, clicking into the next position on invisible wheels where they were strung in the heavens. The Professor had written books about what lay beyond those stars, books of Dust and other worlds that had left Delphine the child gasping and Delphine the adult reeling and Delphine the student hungry for knowledge.

The Magisterium had been quick to answer. All the research she could do, all the projects and experiments she could dream, for a small favour. A token of her faith, now a solid weight against her heart. She glanced at Laurent, and then back to the sea.

"You shouldn't have touched her," her voice came out a whisper, angrier than she'd realized.

He woofed a laugh, short and sharp. "You know as well as I do that we wanted to touch them. And, anyway, she didn't complain."

Delphine frowned, shivering a little. "It was manipulative."

"It  _worked_. Wasn't that the point? Get the thing and get out? We couldn't have passed up the opportunity when it came--you  _know_  we couldn't have had a better chance. We'll be home soon and this will be over." If he meant to say more, it was interrupted by Delphine abruptly leaning over the railing and vomiting, her stomach mostly empty and roiling with anger and bile and the sea. She groaned, sitting back, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her mouth felt cottony and tasted foul. With a pang of something almost like regret, she realized she couldn't taste Cosima through the sourness.

Groaning again, Delphine got to unsteady feet and stepped over Laurent, heading into the small cabin she had requested. They would be at Calais soon, and after that no moment of privacy would be afforded her. Laurent followed, tail drooping.

Settling on the bed, Delphine took the alethiometer out of her pocket and carefully unwrapped it. The gold looked worn, almost more like flesh than metal in the gleam of the whale oil lamps in the cabin, warm from her body heat. She found the catch for the lid, prying it gently open. The mechanism reminded her of clockworks, but the face was all wrong. Tiny figures were set evenly around the dial, thirty six paintings in all, and there seemed to be four hands, three with their own knobs at equal spaces around the edge of the case. Gingerly, fearful of breaking it, Delphine twisted a knob and watched with some satisfaction as a hand moved in neat little arcs, just like the stars in their paths.

She toyed with it for a few moments, twisting knobs aimlessly. That it had to do with Dust she knew, but how it worked or even what it might do were mysteries. She was about to put it away when the fourth hand began to swing.  _Have I done something wrong?_  The knobs, set at a very small picture of a wall with a flower growing over the top, a knight's helm, and a marionette strung up, stayed perfectly still. Her eyes followed the graceful loops of the fourth hand until a pattern emerged: sword four times, then hourglass once, then what she thought was meant to be a lute or guitar a dozen, then back to the sword to start it again. Nothing further happened.

Delphine clicked the lid shut and rewrapped it, put it away, and then began to gather her scant things. After the boat landed in Calais, they would need to catch a steam train to Lille. She would be praised, given her laboratory as promised, and all would come right. She certainly would not spend the rest of the day thinking about swords, or hourglasses, or lutes. Or, for that matter, dark hair and soft lips. The sourness in her mouth was quite certain of that.


End file.
